Hunter Evans remembers running around with his brothers when they visited their grandmother Elvieretta in New Orleans. The Jackson, Mississippi, native can still see the fresh shrimp in the sink and smell the spicy aromas of her homemade stuffed artichokes.

Florida's Gulf Coast offers easy escapes, whether you're craving lush resorts, preseason baseball, or natural retreats.

Want to experience the Florida's natural side? Here, we find manatees (and mermaids), orchids and alligators, weird deer, butterflies, and chickens.

Fans flock to Sarasota County, where they can get close to their team, and their companions can find plenty of other distractions.

Families flock to the Panhandle’s scenic highway during school breaks. But adults can chill here in the spring, too—it’s all in the timing.

The first time that I was lured to the Flora-Bama Lounge, I had been casting for speckled trout on a guided fishing trip off the coast of Orange Beach, Alabama. This was a fall evening in the ’90s. Gulls spread rumors overhead. The sun was going to orange. From a distant point came music, pounding yet lighthearted, like a cross between Bruce Springsteen and Jimmy Buffett. It sounded like dirty dancing. It sounded like a good time.

 As the boat meanders through the bay, my guide and captain debate locations to check for manatees. They rattle off familiar ones we might run into, named and remembered by the map of scars...

When I was 19, I spent the summer in Nashville working in a show for Opryland theme park. I grew up in a tiny town called Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, so getting the chance to sing and dance for months with live musicians in front of a lot of people was my heaven.